Home Renovation Reveals an $850,000 Stash of Gold Coins

A home project turned out to be pretty profitable for a British couple in North Yorkshire, England. In 2019, after living in the home for about 10 years, they decided to rip up the kitchen floorboards in their 18th-century townhouse. They hit what they thought was an electrical cable beneath the concrete. Instead, it was a pile of gold coins packed inside a salt-glazed earthenware cup about the size of a soda can. In October, the rare coins were sold at auction for $852,380. The 264 gold coins dated from 1610 to 1727. They belonged to the Fernley-Maisters, a family involved in Baltic trading. Joseph Fernley and Sarah Maister married in 1694 and lived in the house. Joseph died in 1725, at age 76, and Sarah died at age 80 in 1745, with the “family line dying out soon after,” according to the auction house Spink & Son. The collection is considered “one of the largest hoards of 18th-century English gold coins ever found in Britain,” according to the BBC.

Medieval Wedding Ring Sells for $45,000 

An English resident who could count on one hand the number of times he had used a metal detector to look for treasures made the find of a lifetime in 2019: Under about five inches of dirt, he found a gold and diamond wedding ring. The ring, found in a farmer’s field near the town of Thorncombe, is believed to be from the 1388 wedding of Sir Thomas Brook and Lady Joan Brook.

That day, David Board, 69, had only found a few old copper half pennies when he got a signal near a footpath in a pasture. He thought he had found a gold candy wrapper but saw that it was a ring. He dropped it in his top pocket. A “Finds Liaison Officer” took the ring to the British Museum and confirmed that it was medieval in date and a very rare example. The ring is in almost perfect condition and sold in November for $45,000.

Board said he is going to use the money to help his partner’s daughter buy a house.